True confession time: I have explored, but not signed up for, Memrise. And lest I inadvertently mislead anyone, this lovely web app is not openly licensed or open source to the best of my knowledge. So why am I sharing it here, on a Saylor.org blog, where we love to talk about OER and open access and Creative Commons? Well, a couple three reasons:

We talk about other stuff all the time; take a look at any (ironically named) OER Newsletter in our archives to confirm;

We’ve mentioned Memrise once upon a time, got reminded of it via a friend on Twitter, and we see that it’s come a long way;

What
A free online community that “uses images & science to make learning languages and facts child’s play.” Per their About Us page, the ingredients are fairly simple: science, fun, and community. More specifically, the site uses learning and memory techniques to help users get and retain fact-based knowledge, simultaneously doing its level best to make memorization fun.

Who
Their Team page will say it better than I can, but these folks have expertise in memory, cognitive science, and design.

Highlights
I’m going to be self-serving and mention the ample Simplified Mandarin vocabulary offerings, but if you want to impress your friends with your knowledge of Morse Code, there’s that too.